It’s been three days since the city’s 17th biggest snowfall, and with 20 inches of snow landing in some neighborhoods, New Yorkers are still digging out.
On Thursday afternoon, the Department of Sanitation said that 95% of bike lanes had been cleared, but that does not mean they are cleared for long, as drivers, property owners, and more plows move the snow around the streetscape.
“It’s been a slow-go but we’ve done most of them at this point,” Sanitation Commissioner Edward Grayson told WNYC/Gothamist. “We’ve also seen instances where we’ve cleared the bike lanes and yet people clearing sidewalks that are adjacent to bike lanes or people clearing off their cars, they’ve deposited some snow back into the bike lane. It happens, but we’re working through those as well.”
Protected bike lanes are even trickier, because conventional plows cannot access them. Grayson said many of those have to be cleared manually by shovellers.
New Yorkers have come to expect post-storm obstacles, like mysteriously deep slush puddles at intersections, snowed-over bus stops, and patchworks of pavement on sidewalks. But Grayson argued the city was ready for this storm, and crews are not just sitting around waiting for the snow to melt.
There were 300 shovelling volunteers on Tuesday, and an additional 350 on Wednesday and 375 on Thursday. There are also about 100 small tractors which are deployed on streets and bridges to clear sidewalks and bike lanes.
“It’s better than it has been, say three or four storms ago,” said Jon Orcutt, a former DOT policy official who is now the director of communications at Bike New York. “I think it’s a dawning recognition that street design and street operations have to go together. Other cities figured it out from the get-go, and we’re a little bigger and slower here.”
The MTA also relies on the City to clear dedicated bus lanes and bus stops.
“Bus riders are reporting snow-covered lanes and even more, blocked bus stops. The mayor and sanitation department need to do a better job prioritizing bus stops and bus lanes for snow removal,” Danny Pearlstein, Policy and Communications Director, at Riders Alliance, wrote in a statement. “Especially given how reliant New Yorkers with disabilities and elderly people are on our bus system, it's critical that the administration clears bus stops early and often both during and following snowstorms.”
The city has an additional challenge in clearing the snow, a responsibility the city imposed in part on property owners. This winter, with so many businesses closed or out of business from the pandemic, many owners or tenants may not be around to shovel their walks.
The city had issued 142 summons for failure to clear sidewalks as of Thursday morning. In all of 2020, the DSNY issued 870 violations for snow and ice on sidewalks. Grayson said it is not a tool he prefers to use.
“To go and issue a summons, we will, but then the summons is on the door and the snow still lingers, that’s always going to be the cascading challenge,” Commissioner Grayson said. “But yeah, it’s going to be more difficult.”
